


love shook my soul

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Author is proud, Autistic Technomancers, Gift Giving, Homecoming, M/M, Multi, Reconciliation, Road Trips, Technomantic Culture, twenty hundred headcanons in a trench coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 08:12:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18339677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: After everything that he's made them go through, Roy wants to make amends. He's returning home—if that home accepts him.





	1. Chapter 1

If he hadn't been alone, he would have asked Tenacity for help. One of the most dangerous people—and one of the very few Roy trusted with a knife near his throat.

Roy doesn’t have a strop, but he doesn’t need it. He grips the edge between hie forefinger and his thumb, and runs them all along it to the hilt, realigning micro abrasions. Such small, mundane uses of Technomancy were always better for discharging, and were discreet.

He opens a jar with oil, spreads some on the back of his head and the sides. It would have been better if he had a mirror, but years of doing it on his own allowed him to develop the skill of doing a pretty decent job even in non-ideal circumstances.

It helps him think. Re-establishes the world, the control over his own body. He does it because he [chooses](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/YzDbxlvhTP0GITDUjI_DGuAuFbmCkUZ_ak4FZf6iUcNDPzijybeEg-_AQiE6aVdFmiIxD33nvZvUcH1ZWVOY8Cn4WH4h1CPvth3WzwfQOMVTJgZ0-UboodB9g8DFGeYf2m8hMyTJRN4NSFI-fWIc-wJIAiAYRaqUA3AEmizJr3usfG8r69g-_mRumOqoHLLZJOG8fIL8f9vtS64hV_zJcdnW-g9xjkwhHSCv8F6oSROz3MBZ-cfMSorfcR8NRdLHh99foywvcI0baggwvRNFCc5IX_GZws5Cq1bjbHnmssflqANKTowA0K-_4nbwLN8yLM5IOFnHTzrGYQxpdNWd7uHCpUGWp8pBaVs9usxZIQtISeQGL-zHmysDHSYs8e1xyl2ysLknREI3q3S3zKFmWtcADStZir-3fpNMBpAkrEHslrbFUKF8vzgCfxtCMJOl8m761BXhAU8RmD_sGbgTMVU4W35jC8lrZ4nSONXOAzoX5kDaB-um8ujRea7VtEPDpEG5f4W2q6lovcEAfeYgopOw7sVeCtzRkm65qeUNr5SQeG90V_SYIDOyqdbL6mxWPr5byF2DzqV52cAUiGJZUoQv9vFkyvZM4VUxgrM1jMcj8EthHyxShQXvEmsz3ECrfX4kTn9oSGgaeIf3xzphWzjs4kOB9yU=w602-h104-no) to, because he wants to.

He lowers his head and runs the blade down the grain. He has to stop once in a while when the train car jumps on the tracks.

At least the car is empty. It is the time of turmoil everywhere, and he thinks it’s Solstice, but he’s not sure. He hasn’t been keeping the track of time lately (he couldn’t keep anything at all).

The scrape of the blade on his skin is soothing.

He lets himself take his time: the ride is going to be long, and then a change of trains, and another change, and another.

The white glint catches his attention, but he resolves not to look until he’s finished. He doesn’t need to look.

He wipes the blade on a rag, then wipes his head and neck, packs everything up again.

(The leather sheath for the blade is etched with many lightnings—a gift both from Innocence (the design) and Tenacity (the leatherwork itself). Roy strokes it before putting it aside.)

He picks a few raisins from a small bag, sweet on his tongue, and turns to the white. The mask stares back at him, hovering at eye level, like the face of the Deep Miner from horror tales—only calm instead of twisted in a rictus.

Of course, it is not _staring_ —it is just a thing, a piece of old technology, uniquely tuned to his abilities. It is just a symbol, a metaphor—just like the Conduit itself. His powers are simply a mutation, unique and lonesome. But this is how Technomancers make sense of the world—through metaphors, cladding it in symbols. Giving it meaning, even though they know better than anyone that there is no meaning beyond what they put into it.

This is how humans make sense of the world.

_‘What is the meaning of life?_

_That we ask this question._

_What is the question?_

_Why give life meaning._

_What is the meaning of life?…’_

And back again.

Funny, how it’s all coming back.

_‘Why does the Conduit mask have no eyes?’_

_‘So as they could see more clearly, beyond the appearances, beyond gender and faction and rank. The Conduit doesn’t need to look to be able to see, child, and they cannot simply close their eyes and thus pretend the world doesn’t exist; in the darkness, the feeling of the world is stronger.’_

He shatters the mask—nine pieces, six-and-thirty, eight-and-hundred—more and more until it’s nothing but glimmering dust. He can sweep it away, can open the shutters and let the winds scatter it all over the plains.

He doesn’t. Instead, the dust moves, reforming into bigger pieces again, answering his will, his field, his search for a different form.

The Conduit is not divine in nature, but it can be given a divine meaning. Roy doesn’t want to be given meaning, he wants to find it, to shape it himself.

The Conduit needs anchors. Divine or not, it is difficult to not shatter to dust like the mask and the staff (now in eight-and-hundred pieces in the cloth bag, waiting for Roy’s turn with it), when the whole world rushing into you. Too much, all the time. Sharing a meal—impossible, because the sound of people chewing fills every crevice. Rough clothes—intolerable, because the drag of fabric against skin, the catch on all imperfections, scars, hair drives all the attention to it. Taste—too much, scents—unbearable. When someone raises their voice—terrifying, because it is sound _and_ the surge of electricity due to high emotions.

The war drums of his blood in his ears, in his whole body.

A Technomancer needs a trine. A Conduit needs a trine even more.

Is it what this all about? Those bonds, that care, protectiveness—

(That closeness, and [that love](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XsMBuKf5yM6F1aibMACZrYocdORy5C5OdzDaDGnbDuT58wqeK2dxGq303J0tYv2IQVL9z4kpaId8jR2aTv7Bbbn1LdxqQcHKGatBO3E-wA7YPvI2AfXpkJncPG4gN0dedl2Tn4lrufpix2YAclGKf6ffkXzdvlAimTTBIdMeZ6Df0lm6zQPp2GBuu6jnpHEqZt1rZ3m_fb-yJxruLGO-bNeui4XCLZs08t6VgPo7FD_6N2sc59Gu_izrZHcqK8vBFl-TfKgyDTZJsAzv1NtxuHd2lK3dXAJEeT3oRzK1Qjh8tlvlI7K6T1qH2BySae2TPgMNxOL19goNY9bLDwgzqB_tQtkfv-GPt1ngxKDYrfbizQAb1BFKIoPbztDhdsoMf7otUsKJ_xTJmRFRZ_s3dckO5xLOmz2APFuV7AD_j-xBxq6c41avzfjcM4WRR964E529nRsZUZGPvCvoL98F1oBX06THb9cVm5bO3lZyBykom7V0bhkY6ESqkN0yOdxFbbgM41f1inVQITxdsp1wtlKRLsAjE81jE6VgF1gDb_nW2jDtpQ38D_i039G_B99ohjihA13g55fQ88b2hUsnR0ocu6h28Uh6KjLBLmxc1RPfazhAM_a-xkU-cl6OpTAeja76H0nii1tOvGgUoME00ypp26tiIKY=w560-h81-no).)

—all just the biological imperative? Nothing but an instinct fit for his own particular mutation, encoded in his genes. Chemistry and electricity.

Is that all there is?

All that there is to _him_?

An aberration, atoms working in a chance configuration.

He looks at his hands and lets a ball of lightning form. A Technomancer gets used to burns fast, and they rarely linger. His hands bring death. Plants wither under his touch. He closes his fingers, pulling the charge back inside.

No[.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3_EfJOt2FINgXCMOfFpTVzifOoVI5YE5YZhVr3u7kpNb4XMwiCDAYD_zkTOJmiX_jE9Bjo5KWEg5XvhUv5FIJzv8RQKWFye94DoGgGEBlDaAUCRQP3YUFQ_3xbdJpPBQZ__PkObmkfSelvLGnDXqndSGhOoX6OO4wA4XlYKOZrNPahMn4d2ixOGFqD5LFxAy3NRt1uvXcUBsQHZXvvixJZcYXXRnqwA_IYah7C_IVnPBrgkdFnNl8p94wCpy4vjH7kSFQ_2EDMSYmMcBMKTqlsLY-JyOrlKnkIm_q8k1hjNx2tOsmNank3JQHNA7p2GCoVHXMKsRFNIpjLpwl2gX3bH7-7g3Z6AdU780LkBb9U99ANOLmV-A7cp_QM_VwKWU4Vdr_ymnBCegnT8CWG5vaYBhmEs93hmUmT6kJ2Goa89OeWoE3krf64TfOTnpZrBhi1o7V9tKeykLZ-wKV2e4Q6kNXC_Ll3d9VkwUkcLb5ZJM-Zteg-fo5uVC2ib5OeX_SPei7NyOc72gUhsbqoEBw_WposVllewWyl_gukGfJro0r-15Q_BJKaPbyBPWnQ5Io-R9Kba6MWgbSp6087lFeVRKYWu5r7OSLQOPr0ExQ_Td4ZI2SY0tn-wWqS3ht-0yWaffTIsP7qQHvGY1i9OUn7oDQFPZWtA=w373-h99-no)

He isn’t sure about many things—but this, he knows. It is not only the biology—because he _refuses_ to take it only as that. His love is real because he thinks it’s real. Because he’s given it that name, ‘love’. He knows the power of names. Some things are better left undefined, but this, he encompasses with that word, permeates with that word.

Love, he was taught, is something that simply exists—with no engine behind it, no force[;](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LuQ4GWrmCqjVg2W3YHsGnd59pYmT6Xn3S281kqwS4DKGNHNpTGRNH0WIHqv2u9QAIOB-bosIPDAvuov86MWDcBkf6xSxSETsdtxZ6M3xxJD-lxJn1fhfngDloO6riTza4MKf4RA2IppNaJbgT7Jvaw6QB6MaQ9GcadQ0aklnO5fynH8kYe92Y6qJuNS0lbFHOk-NHrtnUOujzmPC-IF5iUwCjJed-ytp0kW2FDjop1nMxLHCvstwMcqps220pHCp9nBHhkG4DFas-EP0zgeUJgF4YV7KkA52DvrCsLQ4tnfWdw-177nMXu01aTje-1IxNt_a37t33b1enE17nv3uGTyYX4TScv4e1ASzbH2VPhdWH42kQ47o5L-musRIQlJWBO7p4k4l3bH4foOwqfFPPRJqgaminmXBnjaliRh6qrgAepuuCJnKUOLpffMBGWwPIY4n_jMds3QDiJ54YdEdqnhHruNXIFlkYn3xiDZT1F-H-9AzJKkU10lXj4JTo1d4J538MtzPtY4iBGn9LJtGtuPt9VZXvTYltENGezNTQ60sf_1aPb2lIPfIa2xR6mwFH3x4Z3_k07KRTlftYMOn7loc0afu5xcgkwttsEz-8xV1aq4Rq8wYpx1LOf_Wv1h5BdYIwhkozeNUGanG5swZTNN19qrW1WQ=w681-h81-no) it is there without ebbing, without direction. Like the oceans of Earth, vast and bottomless. It is _there_. Suffering becomes unbearable or eases out for short moments—but love is always there, in the space between atoms that make up his body. It doesn’t travel—because it is everywhere. It doesn’t fade—because it is everywhere _evenly_.

He feels like he understands all of that only now—or maybe he always knew that but refused to acknowledge.

What he does with that love, what he’s _done_ with it, is another matter.

Shame is useless when it doesn’t lead to action; wallowing in his guilt won’t help anyone. He’s hurt them, again and again and again—doesn’t matter that it was out of fear, confusion and a myriad other things he can’t begin to untangle and name separately.

They are tired of him, perhaps. Tenacity certainly sounded tired—and Roy’s heart clenches at the thought. He pushes it away. He was selfish—he always was, though not in the way others accused him of it. He wasn’t arrogant—he simply was the best, without much effort, and when he needed to put in an effort, he froze in uncertainty and fear of the results. Of not knowing, of failure. They saw him as the best in the Source, and he needed, he had to give it to them—because being hated for being the best was better than being hated for being a freak. He wanted solitude and the freedom to explore himself—away from expectations, away from misconceptions about himself.

He was [suffocating](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/gQbhnjJ01fjfSfRYs16GL3n-CFpZhVQV1sQqELaBaUbHYw5sOERNzFDN-d0p6am_0zkovnLHjil-i77vOe51x_vD2P-VtTeTzaUMoncgGX2Z_f2E4PVJoPJG3x0ZOhJZ14-xLqP9jM5MQZ0aOKDSY2HX8NpelVlaozQ2Ce_gsK0FHsrlKlYpP2_TSB76xmSf5j_TQb_20nZbaQpxfCenWCfAtn3VN7b4RBy8G9w5nKuKNwh5VUdizScRl6Lh6in7WT0CsmDPjDJByN8WcVyTpACasUUMBukcyiShu52zdIwUSmi89o_-SYz_4DK2aEniUiqo5QiEBJv1FWgThBrdYjUMM56lTDsBpVj3lIzsFqdznejuIapS9HlhDNIp2rt8zI8NPcdromKYvyRu7UVQMbnWB977e-on2aexs5598YlRGuQK77TRA_fVrzRJQr-nmYljkkWXzS3X3AKMzjAhPB8MG_IG-W5IItdhvijFLhnAN7co-zeotF6QVtNTXJhXAl5ZKO2q3Ozye2qGJJ8SA83wUGwD7UAi3AlXRRazdrTrWkWMhoAM34tM58YtZden-FSNXzXbv-TU_i6OkZDzqIOfFlzsQKj1nD649i_tjcbnXoPx7_NmoyF_Lei9vzt73ecVnFRk6opJ1CQpzS6D3izlldaRGPk=w681-h119-no) there—and he was suffocating later, in the love and the burden of responsibility. It ensnared him, he let it—and when the realisation dawned, he ran.

He shakes his head. He’s been thinking on it for weeks, trying to understand his own actions (trying to not lie down and wait for death, in disgust with himself, and in the feeling of helplessness). Trying to keep himself whole—when the axle of his universe is absent.

He leans back on his seat, watching the dance of white particles, humming to reshape them. Looking for the form.

***

He surfaces to the waking world slowly, the heat like a blanket over him[.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/fjgRwMd2vqEvetuG-661xf_YP5l9OH6rz31LnUPjSShzNyp6FqSteI5lmUjsh3nZ-QFmz_a9YoKARbdhem60UXeve5Pfbt03yzJTmwBef9v7TCCoCkN8xlAoHA12w3xNNxuHDE5dMqbYKNf6LxG_n9Akay7TWu-wmaZp-IleQm0i2GxQxIDMQljvTG_Ce6WNvFpZSTdK3Im29wbwBq2_BcJKFgfBJwHHI6nz7tveB8OusHJXcKIKrNXkEWuvrieOMm34zG6emUovywlzeTDkAZYMh1jNcJd1jMQbAXrwGFHQGJGmxcT-hvqnG1KYDiBiUfUw11iS6IqRtuYwe3GYcDw9le1ThuOJdmLAotP29fyAVFvgQntz2RpE9iwX0_wLcfYKMDOaQbtUhaEHxI6ElG0iJEB8GwjYHi78f1yVu8U_Kg19NlLFBuZnfFwJjivwPo-lRRTa7GICjMDCpgrpXXRQjyhVecYj0H93AsxEeTAyjrT_wmXW1gCyO3JP1YsjT-IRTpjaG7KhtpkRotzMC1TbnQ9S84fjtT31f731loPFf8hq0FGZt7Vt67eAW8SvQ6kk9mQiYJTMLh_7OhILfOoF-B4GoMxxnmsj_RKJ4UqrDu3ovI0AkckPzHIw9TOwcBwVghAqkuG_wjLpQ-w-kuUg4iUchpw=w681-h172-no) The train is coming to a stop. He drinks some water, eats more raising and picks the bag (rattling and heavy due to the wiring of the bodyglove, the pieces, and other things), makes his way to the engine. He meets one of the drivers a few cars before it, and reaches for money, but… They look down, away, not taking the Serum.

He tenses up. ‘Problems?’

‘No. We just wanted… Could you give us a blessing, Venerable?’

He thinks he’s gotten it wrong—but the driver looks right at him, lips bitten.

‘Take the money, too, you need it.’ He puts the chip on the sill of the shutters, undoes the knot on the strings securing the salt bag to his belt, then put the bag down near the chip. ‘This is salt. It is blessed. Thank you for the ride.’

He turns away—but the spike in the driver’s charge and their sigh tell him more than he wants to know.

Shadevale is as dusty as he remembers it. He still has hours until his next train, so he takes the list of things he needs to buy and heads to the nearest store.

People stare at his eyes, his temples, he feels their attention on the back of his head. Shadevale is a big town, and no doubt the revelation of Earth and the truth about Technomancers have reached it.

That, and that the Source in Shadowlair is empty.

He avoids the bars, fearing and anticipating to see a familiar red head and to hear the familiar drawl—but runs into trouble in the plaza anyway, a someone with a dark face and shoulders of a soldier bearing down on him.

He clenches a fist—but the soldier is pulled away by other people, and Roy notices, finally, how they surround him.

Buried in his own thoughts and anxieties, he hasn’t realised how all the revelations affected other people. They are thrown off by change, just like he is, although for a different reason, and they know even less than he because they weren’t _there_.

It is fitting, then, for him to help—a lost guide for the lost people—to give them not a blessing, but a warding against the evil, against the blindness of light. The warding signs have always been his best.

People are cruel—he knows it well. But, malicious? Rarely.

He can wipe them out. It is so _easy_ to burn everything down, to set the world on fire. He wants it to burn: the anger never fades. The people can’t afford to wait until he’s feeling kind—he has to do kindness regardless. Be kind, be kind, be kind—because it is so easy for him to be cruel. Because it is difficult for him to empathise (he closes himself off from the world, because it is too much, because he _feels_ them all, their pain, their joy, their anger, their apathy, because their emotions become _his_ and unbearable; too much, too much, too much, he feels so much; he feels _for_ them, and it burns). They can’t afford to wait until he feels benevolent to act benevolent.

There is enough cruelty—he will add to it not a sand grain more.

To save just one life. And then another. And another. And another. It might seem to not make a difference for society—but it makes a difference to those single lives, and the universe remembers. The ripples spread and echo.

Just one life. When he can feel it—and especially when he can’t. He is a bad man—but he can do good, especially when he doesn’t _feel_ good.

He stands up and the crowd parts before him, guiding him into the middle of the plaza. He looks around, at the faces he can’t read and won’t recall. But their signatures will remain in his memory until the end.

He closes his eyes and inhales deeply—the scent of sand and hot spices and the distant storm, the scent of leather and old fabric, the earth and the sky and the sun.

He takes the flask from his belt, opens it and spills the water out onto the stones in a thin trickle. ‘The depths of the earth bring you salt to make your meals richer; the depths of the earth bring you water to make your meals sweeter; they flow in your veins. The rocks bring you shade to make your days lighter; the rocks bring you shelter to make your nights warmer; they will not change in a thousand years. You are children of Earth, and you are children of Mars. There is nothing impossible.’

Silence descends in the wake of his words as the last drops fall onto the stone—but for him, it is not a true silence: it is filled with thousands of sounds.

‘This is unlike any other blessing I’ve ever heard,’ says someone in the crowd.

‘And I,’ Roy says, ‘am unlike any other Technomancer.’

***

He uses the next part of his journey—another train—to check the cloak for the last time.

 _Dreadnought_ is a mighty train, carrying a massive charge—but it is a working train, made for moving supercargo and not people. So Roy is one of the very few passengers, semi-legal. _Dreadnought_ is heading to Green Hope to deliver materials and construction machines for the restoration of the village and farms, for the building of additional walls and gates and whatnot. Aurora tries to prepare for another war with Abundance.

Roy is going to hop off before the train reaches its destination.

He hums to the mighty relic while he works on the cloak. It is a delicate work, just like sharpening a blade: pushing three needles synchronously through the fabric, holding the small weights in place while he finishes the hem. He changes the passage of needles by changing the tune of the melody he’s humming. He checks that the wiring he’s woven into it holds charge properly, then spreads the whole thing on his lap. The cloak is dark grey, almost black on one side and silvery on the other. Insulated on the dark side, wired on the other side. A comforting heaviness, a protection in travels and a blanket, easily spread over two people Roy’s size.

Beside, the dust of his staff is glimmering in the rays of light sneaking through the gaps in the shutters.

He remembers.

Light falling through the triangular window—five of those beams, a beauty of engineering, the blue glass illuminated, ethereal, the beams in a perfect triangle on the floor where coloured sand repeats the pattern, triangles over and over, smaller and smaller into infinity. A voice carrying a call to Earth and to Mars, to Luna and Phobos and Deimos; a chorus following the call; then another voice, two octaves lower, droning the same words over and over; the three—the lead, the chorus, the drone—sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant.

He liked singing even then, though he didn’t like his voice. With time, it has become much lower, and now he thinks he can even carry the drone. To sing the sun into dusk, to sing defiance at dawn, to guide through the cold darkness of the night, to soothe during the heat of the day… [To sing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loXhsglsG-w) the joy of _being_.

The Temple is sealed by his hand—but those who can sing with him are free, and the Temple was never the building anyway.

Does he want to sing with them?..

The dust glints in the stray light beams.

Their songs are not his—not his _only_ songs. He knows plenty more: the songs of Aurora’s people, the songs of Abundance, of Noctis, of the Alliance, of the Valley, the songs of Earth. He is not defined by the songs of his childhood—but he doesn’t have to discard them to learn new songs.

Aurora might have the best harmonising and the droning—but Noctis has drums and horns, and the Valley has its flutes, Abundance, her bawdy songs, the Alliance, its pipes.

He tries the _Sunlight Diamond_ drone part—and the dance of the dust changes. It is searching for a new form.

The train sings with him.


	2. Chapter 2

The station he comes off the train at doesn’t have a name, only a designation: SPMV-3.5. It has a basic border control and a small not-even-a-village attached: a single street with no name, a few greenhouses, a water tower.

Roy touches _Dreadnought_ , smoothing the metal plating for the journey ahead of the old behemoth.

He shoulders his bag, checks the buttons attaching the sleeves to his vest, and goes to the guard house. He’s chosen this station carefully, away from bigger check points. Here, he has a better chance of slipping unnoticed.

The border is only imaginary here, a concept devised by humans: the check point is a low counter with peeling blue paint and an Aurora triangle poster faded from light and wind and sand; beyond the counter, a road of packed sand stretches, indicating the route that villagers take for hunting trips. A single pole stands a dozen steps to the right of the road, the long blue cloth attached to it limp.

At the counter, a single figure leans on an elbow, bent over a datapad. They are dressed in the worn, sanded-down, patched up uniform of someone who hasn’t seen a quartermaster for weeks. They look up as Roy nears the counter. One of their eyes is milky.

Roy shows the bored soldier his papers—for one Defiance Smith-Williams. He doesn’t like the fact that they are a _soldier_ , but General Grant’s success has ensured that the Army is now the primary driving force in the Guild—no matter how exhausted or depleted of numbers. Worry stirs in Roy: Honour no doubt wants another war to crush Abundance, thus solidifying his own position and power, especially in the wake of the Resistance activity and their campaign of disseminating the truth about the recent war, its goals, about Green Hope, about the Technomancers—but Zachariah has ensured that the internal turmoil in Aurora is known in Abundance also. Roy is not a strategist, but he knows one thing for certain: this mess is going to take even more lives when it breaks out, and though for the Guilds they are just numbers and tools, for him they are real people.

At least the Technomancers won’t be turned into WMDs. It is uncertain whether some Aurorans would join the war effort on their own, although he has a smattering of confidence they wouldn’t. He has more confidence in the former grey ones: they will not send any of their kin to the war again. Perhaps their plight will make the former Aurorans pause and think before joining the fray. The Aurorans are rogue and trying to find their footing, but as ever the rest of the Technomancers look at them because they are the most populous of the Orders, with strong old ties with others, with their very particular culture and ideology that compels to strengthen these ties even though others consider Aurorans sort of weird relatives; with their abilities and training of debate and swaying opinion… Just like he’s not one for strategy, Roy is not one for politics either—but it seems a meeting is bound to be organised—the Triumvirate, the first since the original one that happened ages ago, to discuss the future of the Technomancers, now that it is known they are mutants and Earth is no more, now that most of the Technomancers are free and cannot, _will not_ be contained.

The meeting that, no doubt, would require the presence of the Conduit—the only one currently known.

He pushes these thoughts away for now. This is not why he’s travelling.

He waits patiently as the soldier inspects his papers, trying not to show his growing worry over their close reading. The soldier nods at his bad. ‘What’s there?’

‘Hunting gear. I’m recruited by the worm-hunters. Their truck should arrive shortly.’

‘Worm-hunters recruit outsiders now?’

He shrugs. ‘I can hunt moles, I can cook, I can shoot. Don’t care why they need me, as long as the pay’s good.’

‘No work at home?’

‘Former soldier. What work do I have when nobody else has any?’

The soldier evaluates him. ‘Where did you serve?’

He grins. ‘With the Red Locusts.;

‘ _Merde_ ,’ they breathe out. ‘Weren’t they captured?’

‘Yeah, the Hammers bastards took us by the Dawn Arch. It was brutal, the survivors were herded like cattle and sent to P.O.W. camps way behind the front lines.’ He twists his face. ‘We were held no better than mutants, miles of desert around.’

‘How’d you get out?’

He smiles, nasty. ‘I ran when mutants started a riot.’

‘That’s quite a story.’

‘You tell me. Thing is, my folks back home probably thought me dead. Found my home empty.’ He shrugs again. ‘Now trying to earn some Serum and travel, hope I’d find ‘em.’

‘General Grant might call you to service again.’

‘And I’ll bring my newly dusted-off hunting skills and connections with the worm-hunters to the table, no?’

The soldier folds his papers and returns them to him. ‘Still, have to check your bag. Sorry, friend.’

‘’S okay. Orders, I understand.’ He shrugs it off onto the counter and opens the strings.

‘Man, you have so much sand in here, you know?’

He rubs the back of his neck. ‘Yeah, I know. Bloody sand gets everywhere.’

‘Nice knife!’

‘Thanks. A gift from my fiancé.’

The soldier looks up. ‘You were to get married?’

‘Yeah. Yeah. He was… is… a hound breeder. A real piece of work. But I got drafted and, well, I kinda “perished” with the Locusts and… I don’t know where to find him. Maybe I shouldn’t try.’

The soldier closes his bag, ties the knots carefully. ‘No. No, you look for him and your family, _bien_? There were only rumours about the Locusts, and there is nothing worse than not knowing for sure. You look for him, friend.’

He smiles, soft. ‘Yes. I shall. For my whole family.’

The soldier reaches their hand over the counter—and Roy hesitates. The soldier’s gaze slides over his face, lingers on his temples…

‘Which one of you concrete-mashers is Defiance?’

The shout startles both of them. Roy looks to the side.

A giant truck, alike and not alike the one he knows so well, has come to the border, the heat of the day glistening on its cream-white sides.

A single figure is walking to them, wrapped in travelling gear. The light glints off the chain wrapped on their left forearm.

Roy raises his voice and hand. ‘That’d be me!’

‘Then drag your arse here!’

He smiles apologetically to the solder. ‘My ride, I guess. _Merci_.’ He clasps their hand firmly.

No spark passes.

‘Yeah. I guess it’s your ride. Travel well.’

He picks his bag and steps away from the counter—and feels more than hears the soldier scoop sand and throwing it his way. A warding to the departed.

He goes over to the hunter. ‘Thanks for picking me up.’

They are shorter than him, and he feels a pang in his heart at the sight of their slight form.

They wave. ‘Don’t mention it. The Hound’s name is known. You travelling after him?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right. Come on. We gotta move.’

He moves with the to the truck, gets in. Another hunter at the wheel eyes him up and down, and grunts something, then leans to the dashboard. A chain is wrapped over their left forearm, too.

He doesn’t know their names.

He finds a seat squeezed between the hunters when the truck lurches, the bag on his knees.

He thinks on his talk at the border. ‘The Red Locusts’—Thirty-Sixth Infantry—were indeed nearly wiped—though there wasn’t much to wipe. Roy admits he was caught in the propaganda: like many of those who volunteered, he wanted to belong, to do something; he felt _less_ , lonely, with his powers such a burden that he feared he would snap. At least the presence of other people helped him to keep himself in check: he couldn’t let it out, couldn’t hurt them.

Tenacity would have called volunteering his worst idea—but he has never told Tenacity about it, although he suspects Innocence might have. And anyway, what would the reason why he ended up in a P.O.W. camp be? Tenacity is clever.

He wanted…

Major Summers wasn’t entirely incompetent—it’s that warfare, tactics weren’t his thing, as much as war can be anyone’s ‘thing’. Roy had to restrain himself to not point out better alternatives during decision-making—but he needed to keep a low profile. He couldn’t let himself become known, though his reputation formed anyway. Solidifying him. A cage, just like everything else.

He hasn’t talked about that time with anyone.

The soldier on the border obviously served with Technomancers or at least knew enough of them to try to check him through touch. Roy doubts it was just friendliness in that offered hand. But sand thrown after him…

He missed Tenacity so badly while being with the Locusts.

‘Are you a Technomancer?’

He looks at the driving hunter. They stare resolutely on the way ahead.

‘I am.’

‘Is it true that all Technomancers are mutants?’

‘It is true.’ He doesn’t feel threat from either of the hunters. Only tension. ‘Just like you are a mutant. Without mutations, humankind wouldn’t have existed.’

‘Mutation in the Dust is a sign of sin.’ They say it in a tone that suggests frequent repetition.

‘Are you from Abundance?’

‘Formerly. Why?’

‘Abundance teaches that Mars is hell to which we all were sent for our sins, doesn’t it.’

‘Yes. Why?’ Finally, they look at him. ‘You teach differently?’

‘I don’t teach anything. But I think sometimes, it does resemble hell. That people create themselves.’

‘Through their deeds.’

‘Through their _actions_. But they are just as capable of creating a… paradise,’ he recalls the word.

‘You are an Auroran!’

He tilts his head. ‘Formerly.’

‘Don’t you Aurorans believe in reincarnation or some such?’

‘In consequences; it’s not the same.’

‘Oh, an Auroran all right,’ the other hunter laughs. ‘Nobody can outtalk an Auroran Technomancer.’

‘The goal is not to outtalk,’ he murmurs, looking straight ahead, then picks the bag and gets up. ‘Excuse me.’

He leaves the cab. The back is as spacious as it is in the truck that belongs to Tenacity, thought filled with different items, of course, and its dimensions and shape wrong. Each of worm-hunting trucks is unique.

Roy finds a place among crates to sit down, lowers his bag on the floor at his feet.

He’s not here to hunt—that was just a ruse he told to the soldier—and he’s certainly not here for cultural and philosophical debate. (He thinks of Sean. He thinks of Innocence. He thinks of Tenacity. He thinks of the Noctis Prince, of Melvin, of Honest, of Connor and Ian, of…)

He dives into the bag, and his fingers touch the wiring of the bodyglove, now so terribly familiar. It is part of the Conduit’s vestments that different both from the casual and the ceremonial attire of other Technomancers. For starters, the Conduit’s vestments don’t include the corset.

(The first time when he asked Tenacity to help him with the corset…)

The bodyglove itself is very much different from the usual, too: a clever piece that can be split into many part, it took Roy a while to figure out how to open and to put it on—and then more time to be astonished at how it can be restructured, reformed, whole or partially, however he needs. It has several layers of wires of different thickness and composition, some alloys entirely unfamiliar to him but all so responsive to his abilities. The standard bodyglove is pretty simple, straightforward compared to this piece of ingenious engineering and design.

Roy can admit, in the privacy of his mind (as much as his powers can afford him any privacy) that he likes it. He likes the corset, too, the magnificence of the layered ceremonial vestments—but this feels even better. The Conduit bodyglove fits him perfectly, covers from feet to the throat, presses thick and comforting around him—a protection from the world, more solid, in a way, than his thick leather jacket and all the layers he usually wears underneath. Like a tight, but not constricting embrace. He is aware that the bodyglove is more form-fitting than his travel clothes—but he doesn’t feel _exposed_. It can filter off the currents around him to a tolerable flow, or it can open him to them just as easily. It is heavy, but it is a good weight. The ribbed soles of the feet are flexible to give a good grip, and if he needs, he can ground himself with no trouble at all. The wiring covers his fingers, too, thin and flexible, enhancing tactile sensation instead of hindering it.

It is a wonder—and it is his.

He strips down to his underclothes, shivering from the rather chilly air of the truck. He leaves the undershirt on: all those times he tried to go with it and the times he tried to go without, and he hasn’t decided what he prefers.

He puts the bodyglove on, closing it in all the secret, clever ways it responds to him—and as it settles on him, as he prods it with his field, lets his Fluid course through it, he feels better. The world is a bit easier to bear. He clads himself completely, to the tips of his fingers, the gorget of wiring protecting his throat, only the wires that go into connectors on his head he leaves off for now. He closes his eyes in the half-darkness of the truck—and listens.

Not to the sounds always bothering him to the point of distraction (breathing, someone else’s and his own, rustle of sand, electricity around any electric-powered machinery, stray phrases, creaks, ticks, clangs, whooshes, swishes, clacks, cracks…).

He listens—to the world. How it sings around him, everything so _alive_ and connected down to the beating heart of Mars and outward, in the chorus of the cosmos. The atoms in his own body—and the stars whose light has come through time. It would take his senses about fifteen minutes to reach the Sun, although it would require all of his focus for him to be able to return. He listens: to the charge ticking on the truck from a recent drop in atmospheric electricity, to the concentration of the driver, to the half-trance of the other hunter, to moles clawing a tunnel underneath and raising their heads when vibrations from the truck reach them…

The world speaks to him but doesn’t intrude—he _chooses_ to listen.

He opens his eyes, blinks a few times to align his field with his physical body, to retreat his senses into his small frame, and reaches into the bag again. His fingers brush the soft, worn cloth of the blue robes. They are nothing particularly special: the fabric is treated to survive harsh conditions and time, it is rough, with dye beaten into it, and there are tiny, hair-thin wires woven into it to protect it from catching ablaze in the much charge. He likes that, unlike the bodyglove, the robes are not constricting at all, easy to put on. He finds the edges of the pauldron and gauntlets, too. The serene, soft blue robes—and the sharp, gleaming metal claws and vambraces and the pauldron; the symbolism of such a contrast isn’t lost on him. It isn’t brass like on the usual vestments—it is an alloy similar to the galvanised soles of the bodyglove’s feet. Roy’s specialisation is not metallurgy, so he isn’t certain about the exact composition. The story goes that the pauldron and vambraces and gauntlets with claws—the whole ensemble was made using only the first Conduit’s powers. The alloy contains chords Roy knows as the ‘melody’ of titanium, and it’s very old, but of everything else he isn’t certain. It isn’t made to harm him, however. The alloy has the same plasticity of the bodyglove: answering to his singing, changing its shape to fit him perfectly. To feel its weight is good, too.

The whole attire is more precious, in many ways, than factories and farms, it is history and myth in material form just like the Conduit themself is a living myth. But factories clothe people and farms produce their sustenance, and the Conduits exist whether or not they are named so—and if the Conduit’s vestments come into the wrong hands, the most likely result would be weaponry. Roy isn’t sure that his own hands are right—but these vestments are _his_ , given to him freely. Waiting for him. They feel right, comfortable. Even the mask and the staff—when he explores them on his own.

They are his. A part of him, just like his powers. He’s left the Source, but he can’t leave his Technomancy behind—he would be a different person without it, he wouldn’t be _himself_. Neither gift nor a curse, it simply… _is_. A particular property of his body—but so much more than that, too, not reduced only to the physical, just like his thoughts and his feelings are not only physical.

He refuses to take all of it only as physical.

And just like he worked to change his body into the shape he feels comfortable in, the shape that is _his_ ; just like he adjusts minutely the bodyglove and the pauldron and claws to feel comfortable in; so he works on his Technomancy. The work hasn’t stopped for all the years he’s lived, and he’s coming to terms with the apparent fact that it will never be finished: he is not a single thing, he is a current, a song, matter-and-time, ever-changing.

He puts on his leathers, wraps the scarf. He can’t put on the blue, not yet.

‘So, you know the Hound.’

He looks up at the hunter, the one who is not from Abundance.

‘Yes.’

‘And you and him…’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘I see. And you are Auroran.’

He tilts his head. ‘As I said, formerly.’

‘You think there’s going to be another war?’

‘I hope not, but nobody cares what I hope for.’

‘War is bad for worms.’

‘How so? I mean, aside from the obvious reasons. I’d like to hear the expert.’

‘Artillery. Worms are blind, but they have an excellent sense of smell and hearing—it’s not proper hearing, like yours and mine, it’s tactile-hearing. They feel vibrations in the rock, and sound travels very far down under. And the artillery fire causes them to think there’s a quake, but artillery doesn’t behave like a quake, so they get confused, disoriented, frenzied, and they die.’

‘I know very well what a frenzied drilling worm is like.’

‘How?’

‘I fought one.’

‘You… faced off a frenzied worm.’

‘Yes. On my own. I had to kill it. I’m very sorry.’

The hunter is looking at him with wide eyes, and he turns away. That kill weighs heavily on him, but he had little choice. The majestic beast was in a lot of pain, and Roy himself wasn’t in the right state of mind, angry and disgusted by the experiments Generosity’s group was conducting, by the realisation that the bloody push onto Green Hope was only so they could establish their camp near the Relics. His anger was fanned by Generosity’s words—old accusations of arrogance. His fear for Tenacity, too, left alone close to Generosity. Tenacity was very good, but both of them were tired and in such a state Tenacity would have had a hard time facing a well-rested young Technomancer on his own.

And Roy couldn’t stop thinking about Innocence.

‘You know that even seasoned hunters wouldn’t be able to do that?’

‘I’m sorry, I really am.’

‘No, no, that’s… To put down a frenzied worm— They don’t stop, they just die of exhaustion. It was a loss—but the alternative would be worse, the suffering of the Leviathan would be great. You can become an honorary worm-hunter, like the Hound.’

He looks at the hunter and bows his head. ‘I am humbled.’

They grin, yell to the cab, ‘Sis, come here!’

The hunters converse in low voices when the truck is stopped. A chain is produced, roughly the length of Roy’s body. It is thin, links the size of his knuckle. It is cool on his palm when the hunter driver places it there. ‘We hereby name you a kindred to all of us,’ she says, wrapping the chain loosely over his forearm. ‘Wherever you are, we shall treat you as our family—but remember that family both supports and admonishes.’

He nods solemnly. ‘I will remember. Is… that all?’

The other hunter shrugs. ‘We don’t have the time or the people for elaborate ceremonies. I thought you would appreciate the… ritual. The Plains don’t wait. Is Defiance your real name?’

He tilts his head. ‘You have me the chain without asking that first?’

‘I don’t care what you are called on papers, only what you call yourself.’

He looks at them both, then says, ‘I don’t know. But I usually go by Roy. It fits the best for now.’


	3. Chapter 3

‘Your caravan, Roy.’

‘Thank you.’ He gets his bag, now lighter without the bodyglove.

The hunters look at him. ‘What _are_ you, that you can call favours from us and have a Noctian caravan waiting?’

‘I’m just Roy.’

The caravan’s sails look like they are ready to take into the air. The Eye, _Ocio_ , looks at him from crimson wings.

One figure moves to him, lowering goggles, and he recognises the gait even though he struggles with the face.

‘Roy.’

‘Jaya. Thank you for waiting for me.’

Ey smiles, full moon disks glinting in eir headscarf. ‘A few hours more of travel—and we’ll stop for the night. Will you sing?’

He smiles in reply. The tired caravan is returning home. ‘It will be an honour.’

He is settled in Jaya’s sandsail, the seat beside eirs, his bag put behind the seats, and the caravan takes off again. Jaya is the leader of the caravan, but currently not the leading pilot.

The hunter’s question lingers in his mind. What is he, indeed? How would he define himself in a few words, to a stranger? A Technomancer. A renegade. Crazy. A bad man. Roy.

He wants to be un-defined. Without a Guild to claim his body, without a name, even the one he’s chosen himself; without a body at all, even though the one he has is in the shape he can tolerably inhabit. To simply _be_ —without being defined. Not one—because ‘one’ implies a border, a separation. The universe that wanted to know itself—and split to do so. He aches at that separation: the world is crushing him because there are borders to crush. Years ago, he struggled to establish boundaries, to _find_ them between himself and others—not those boundaries that others perceived, but those that were true to him. Now, he thinks his longing is deeper, that he sought understanding, acceptance—ultimately, unity with no boundaries. ‘I’ turned into ‘We’ turning into the unspeakable, because to speak it, to name it is to separate it from the rest of the universe. Definition is, by its nature, an act of separation: here is This and there is Not-This.

A yearning for unity. His abilities give him the taste of it beyond what most people can even imagine—but better to never have tasted it than to have known it and to realise it is not enough…

But if he admits to his bone-deep ache, then he can’t turn away from the fact that the people he loves are his—a part of him. He can’t turn away from them.

And yet, he ran.

He ran away, like he always did, and maybe he hasn’t stopped running since he left the Source. But now… Now, he’s going home—if that home accepts him after all the devastation he has wrought.

He didn’t say anything to Innocence—and said the wrong things to Tenacity, even if they were true for him when he said them.

He isn’t certain about the extent of damage: only they can tell him. If they want to talk to him at all. But he needs to make amends, to try to set things right, and if they don’t accept him once more, if they tell him that they are tired of him and that the damage is irreparable… He will accept it.

‘How is the city, Jaya?’

‘The Technomancers of the Alliance have started to arrive with their clans. Noctis is a good middle point but the Council is concerned for the safety of the city. Talks need to be organised, between the various Technomancers, and between the _Fraglie_.’

‘That would be… difficult.’

‘To put it mildly,’ ey agrees. ‘Dandolo and Melvin have admitted to the, ah, thing going on between them.’

He smiles. ‘Oh finally.’

‘That’s what we all said.’ He can hear the laughter in eir voice.

They fly in silence for a few minutes.

‘Yours are there, too, Roy. They haven’t left.’

He knows who ey is talking about, and he has to swallow and look away. ‘Thank you.’ He hopes his voice doesn’t betray much.

He likes Noctis: it is the place where he feels at ease the most. Noctis can be too much—with sounds and smells and colours—ever-changing, like winds and sand—but it isn’t constricting, and for all its quickness it has the patience to wait while Roy looks for himself. It is fitting that he’s returning there, that they are waiting for him in Noctis.

Noctis is _alive_ —in a different way that Shadowlair or other big Guild cities are. It is full of so much energy, not restrained, but flowing free: winds, sand, shakes that do little to disrupt the city’s life; all the animals inside and around it, all the people, the plants; the storms…

(The magnetic mystery of the heart of the Labyrinth nearby. Roy’s senses cannot penetrate it, but at the same time he is aware of it; it is calling to him.

He knows what dwells [there](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/VwS46BaahS86ac_4oC2X4w8ZaMiErVm2kmUucpEPXRx_Cis_w3x60a3dN1DPy4W_h12vL_vxPx14Z7MysrcWQ1z4ANqeIJv98s3y3I2dNfIDib3O2VFWuR_3etjZYlTjwD_QYH9MW26NEsQFsgKul9jAZCGfdBDp4aFmliG8Aw-IBPmNUrRVFeD4yZp99JSlNplnENUelQbX6yfXCor-qCJTfVlzX_5YDofEDxxNrrUAFyImZIlIxEe2VjVQF_TitOQwJff7HBvcS-knbL89vv4Zj24ajxh7V52Jzanwx9AWekqpYl4qtupZJd6TfExj1WFwZb_DezlvzFUMIQpulmQSOw-nVnLoqZhJuAPDJ9KJdEeua3-QWy05tIR7OVYvYg2ScQCWZAGVMLqIjyO-7Zn3rrJS2WV7DXAZ6mj6-oJucAMtN7YOImjHeXsY_nny426HeckXjZDCXuZ_PMuj3fxSqondNFCRUOYqY3oov0rgFLnksldMC-xF6rUz8pj3Q-eRe3LFGUicXjwtYY2uYv-gr1gGOKZZxWM_QB5o9MvkdwrG3BB80ek2W9-dyQ_udEkzvA2QhioaO9GZLotsGiIysKGAlUYqLkbhoIMTH6rgOn6gVbiXG8ZRVd0zzkWkhhiiIgyz9YzGaUl5tSlN-FFduV_9g6s=w552-h344-no).)

Life in the Valley is still searching for its shape, its footing, unstable—but Noctis, while in constant flux, remains itself, maintains what makes it Noctis.

(The Palace is like a star, and the city is orbiting it.

From there, the city was born.)

There are quiet places in Noctis, too, but they are not _dead_ —the energy warm, always there, lapping at Roy’s feet. And he can leave any moment to get his head clear.

He understands Melvin’s fondness for Noctis, and Melvin’s fascination with it.

In Noctis, he doesn’t have to hide parts of himself, neither the Technomancy nor the violence of his past, the languages he knows, the skills he has. The people he loves. He doesn’t have to hide them in the Valley either—but there, the burden of being Scum’s guest, the burden of being a mutant presses on him. The Valley demands only one aspect of him, and he has fought hard to not be seen as only one thing. He suffocates in the Valley.

(Perhaps, _his_ is not a place at all.)

He closes his eyes, taking more of his ever-dwindling supply of raisins, letting his awareness billow around and behind the caravan like a cloak, and sings.

***

He folds his field tight, Fluid condensed, but the night seems charged up when the caravan stops. Even with his senses retracted he can feel the close proximity of the hidden city.

The quickly dropping temperature doesn’t bother him: the bodyglove and leathers protect him from losing body heat, and he can warm himself up by adjusting Fluid coursing through the wiring.

He shares the quick meal—dried mole meat and bread and chunks of caravaner’s marzapan—with the merchants, and sings to them about returning home (choking on a few lines; Jaya watches him), and when most of the caravan settles for sleep, keeping close to each other for warmth, sharing the energising excitement of returning home, Roy picks his bag and goes away from the camp. He has borrowed one of the small lamps filled with jelly gas and he charges it up. It flares with white-blue light.

He finds a suitable rock, puts the lamp on it and lowers the bag on the ground and sits down, throwing his head back. The stars blink at him[.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/PhGAdfhDbWvHUgE-4dJvbBBtr7PiI_T2K5rlJ8992HqzM2RzpnWONeZcgWIoN6C5DT7PY1FXeG2eeFf6iknJ9whIIxzxpdkjJS4kfM7DoXcPQjjbluBl3DP_0ITJymv6tUh6mVC0UVJNp75areZaFX_0-S4vW75TbmrAgObcqLgnmwG0d73DB0creRzOduMS1Qtl7zT95HgaI0UY3Y8acJOpnpyQkJK3ifHibkCfNGGmf-4eec_nUqcwh_wLRCg3oWo7B18garyVL8Wdp_Bqww3H5ZFvjz6v1TaKRj2oso1GLe91iibUwqTDZr1RhJA5v3h0TRk86qPrH92BfpfNqFeUp8pzcFBYQ-z91RDev-GtTGlGOuXGKH3DwtXjCHG12FGKYUvKc5u-hmbISvdEk3c0IYnUQBXRDz40mA-qSAZeSpcq4ihgL3fhdjmG1O2jD-N4eVkcHPlgWImay_y7EaAuvlqr4DbXtyWPX67FtOw-VArmHqjXpUWbAySKXi8Xc7NdjYYp4EZ5hRTJBGiuWbho1YyOeHs2nRONpLAfVCIghHRx2V7Hwi3U5nnXkhcZRR-px9XcxbGtCR-wIT59DVTcLQ_mTmh_Ekx-OMeiIvnCP8-ah-jL4895gZxLAv9P4XOHxx7GWPDPJTFUiP0rypvsI8Whmh0=w464-h33-no) The plains are cooling down, and there is a torn veil of clouds on the west. Sand rustles under his feet. He adjusts the thickness of the soles and presses his feet into the ground, every rock and crack as though to his bare skin. He can put all his worries and uncertainty away for now.

He can put them away forever. Turn the light off and walk into the night and disappear. Walk with the night. He’s come out of nowhere, rarely talking about his past with anyone, and he can disappear into nothingness—a shadow joining other shadows…

But this, he thinks, is what Tenacity expected of him, during their meeting when he brought Roy the Conduit’s vestments.

The thought leaves a foul taste in Roy’s mouth, like stale water. The thought that they might have given up on him—and all the hurt he must have caused.

He’s walked away from Tenacity so many times without even notifying him. Of course, there was the justification of safety: the less they knew about each other’s destination, the safer each of them was… But Tenacity cared about him (from the start, Roy comes to realise), in that fiercely loyal and sometimes strange, _hound_ way of his. And maybe at some point it turned from the justification of safety to the inevitability of pain. Tenacity understood, accepted it as a part of what they are, of how the world is: where nothing is his and nobody cares and even if good things happen, they never last, not for him. They are, both of them, bad men.

What has Roy done?..

He only confirmed all that.

While Tenacity is used to it, Innocence is not—and the universe seems to try to _make_ him get used to it. That everyone leaves him eventually while he is powerless to stop it, while he is away, even, not there to watch them go. While he can’t even say good-bye.

Roy hates himself, hates to confirm Tenacity’s hurt—and to make Innocence used to it, too. Innocence has nobody. He has no home to return to. The journal describing the war serves as his protection—but it also paints a target on his back. And Roy’s leaving Innocence, again and again, would confirm that Innocence can’t trust anyone. Can’t get attached to anyone.

It’s not war that would kill Innocence’s faith in humanity—it’s this: Roy leaving him.

What has he done?..

He thinks about Sean. The long chain of losses, even of those few things he has: bonds of kinship, love. Things that gave Sean the energy and anger to fight, to survive—no matter what, for the sake of, in spite of.

He refused to give Sean the rest he so wanted. Roy said: I’m looking for my freedom—let’s look for yours, too, together. He said: you can’t die; they need you. He said: people are worthy of your living for them. He said: not yet.

But he left. As people always left Sean, his kindred eaten up by war, misery, loneliness, stripped of their humanity.

How dare Roy leave when he hadn’t let Sean leave himself?

All those things he said to Sean, all the accusations. Now he’s brought Sean back to his family, and what did his leaving told Sean? Our bond was a lie. It lasted only so I could bring you back, and now that you are with your family, we can stop pretending[.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ef6los9XZZMJyjHz07AdFn_tAQurd-KrUg3I-4XzcWXA-B06dlZx9X0n-1sUuZv5_T6OG44MCzdqUo97AFRjMrC5WyuuB3O-e_KXxI320dlmYNLefLnpheRGZ6-mJeWXcsJJ9yx5TN12Rnfl-BI2UhhY_FHhGh5YF4jByZe8UgV4zoboto0fFB7ATzN5BIYQxs6DFGkS4RbDXbQt73zSLQAkwbaGtZV0o5HA6jaV0HBszaZPPeuDm95iPMgGxdndLz1AjB9__u2cN6qOSg55aahKT1zNFLuLmaGrCVI6hIU8NEXVRZs3YCvUyx_w7EthHVA94bobWOu9l7AZvpv18gF3wnJzhHsr6KiZSSA4MxfQwre_9AM6o66Xx5bEegddTXLaBFOtNbLb_JFFhlabuPoub9qZaTi3pZB16Fp1C_DyglOSekLU6IUmTrGGPEIaiqYCHWJCtuTxziAilTnyTqq8A0Utz7jT5jNByeWL2Mb3YUtjdmsZYcYAA8Q2nYTaJKwHI5RMZN1QPwzyOkoYt9KcDZyVfCg8hY0m7bmcj_5Hsh70Gw6Ip91kw5HD-1U4W7obJY3FzKFfftRWD2OK9xS9br7dXpi_T8m9rNrv8n3RqxTLH_L1TQ3T-0nuXXHE7e5l8ClzldN9cQTor5NHV2cl_ICWhgs=w244-h21-no)

What has Roy done?..

The Heart of Darkness still carries the tiniest flecks of Sean’s blood, molecule-sized.

He sighs and returns to the present.

He takes the blue robes out of the bag, spreads them on his lap, then gets the staff out, too. He likes its new shape, and, as ever, it lies perfectly in his hand. He runs a thumb over the surface, the wiring allowing him to feel even the slightest difference in texture. It is comforting.

He isn’t sure that what he wants to do is going to be successful. It is a work on a level smaller than he’s ever attempted—though at least there’s no danger to any life (except for his own). It might be unachievable, even, considering that he won’t submerge the items into electrolytes. He counts on his control and ability to balance his powers, on his focus—and on the affinity of his items.

Most things he knows and can do are things he’s adapted or developed entirely on his own, through theorising and experimenting.

He half-closes his eyes and splays his fingers a hairbreadth above the items on his lap and allows his focus to centre on them. He catches the various tones and chords and touches those of the robes and the staff. He slips deeper, his focus shifting to a dot, a speckle, smaller and smaller as the sounds become longer, longer, more varied, tastes bursting on his tongue and textures exploding under his fingers. He touches various textures/sounds/flavours, and they vibrate, changing infinitesimally. He catches the tunes he needs and pulls—but to them, other chords cling. Something shatters at the edge of his awareness, high and white. He shifts some of his focus and opens his eyes wider and watches tiny fragment, thick but small, shaped in triangles, hexagons, dodecahedrons, glimmer in the air, and between them smaller particles, blue and tasting bitter, are woven, and the shift of his awareness onto them causes them to move a micron in new directions.

(In the foreground of his mind: the lamp has shattered, and the gas has escaped, losing its charge.)

He focuses on the melody again. The clinging threads are familiar, even though he can’t remember how: deep, reverberating, they are low and taste like chocolate, warm and rich, thrilling in one moment, sensual the next—grating the next again. He can’t untangle them from those he needs, so he lets them be.

He works like this, time and space just words with no meaning. He works through means different than purely physical: a sound that has no beginning, no length, no end; a taste that doesn’t fade on his tongue—even though there is no tongue at all; a texture that is not in his hands (there are no hands, his hands are stars), but it is still felt in the core of him.

He works and works, tying tones and scaling tunes until they are woven into a song he needs, that tastes just perfect: stringent yet with complex sweetness of rose petals, the bitterness of almonds twined with dramatic richness of the sixth chord.

01110011 01110100 01110010 01100101 01101110 01100111 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01110010 01100001 01101001 01110011 01101001 01101110 01110011 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01110010 01100101 01110011 01101000 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100110 01100001 01101001 01101110 01110100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101

01101000 01101111 01110111 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01101110 01101110 01110101 01101101 01100101 01110010 01100001 01100010 01101100 01100101

01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101101 01100101

01110111 01101000 01101111 01110011 01101111 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01100001 01110110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100110 01100101

01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101101 01101001 01110100 01110011

00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00001010

00110010 00110010 00110010 00110010 00110010 00110010

00110001 00110001 00110001

00110000

0

 

 

 

The universe makes itself remember how to be separate, makes itself remember itself.

Roy makes himself remember that speech exists, and the convention of words exists.

‘You shouldn’t come close to me,’ he says, and remembers his voice, remembers that the air makes its way out of his lungs and makes his vocal chords vibrate. ‘When I’m like this. It isn’t safe.’

‘I saw the glow and came to check when glass broke.’

He looks at the lamp. He has to remember how to see in the spectrum of humans. ‘Sorry for the lamp.’

‘It’s nothing. Are you all right?’

The items on his lap. He looks at them, then puts them into the bag, lifts it and shakes it slightly to settle them inside. ‘I am. I think.’

Jaya sits down, evidently at peace. She carries a small light in a vial on her tunic. ‘Is that glow a part of your powers?’

He looks at his hands, rubs the tips of his fingers together. ‘A by-product. Yes.’

‘Technomancers are very resilient. I think it’s because you are—’

‘Mutants?’

‘Inherit Mars.’

‘You are here, too. And you took the news about Earth better than most.’

She smiles, looks up at the stars. ‘Noctis is our home. _Mars_ is our home. We honour the cultures we brought with us from Earth—but we have our own cultures, too.’ She touches one of the half-moons on her headscarf. ‘But maybe it’s because I’m biased.’

‘You love Noctis.’

‘I do. Although sometimes Dandolo makes it difficult to like it.’

‘How so?’

‘He’s ruthless in exposing failures and failings of the city. He doesn’t allow the people to fall complacent.’

‘I don’t trust politicians. But I am just one man.’ He looks down at the Conduit’s things, his own things. ‘I try to survive and protect those I love.’

‘As do we all.’

‘I am nothing.’

‘The things at your feet claim otherwise. But if you are “nothing” for history, you are everything for those you are returning to.’

He looks at her, and she smiles, and for a moment her eyes are full of stars.

‘My Lady,’ he inclines his head.

She laughs. It rumbles in the depths of the ground. ‘You know I prefer to not be called that.’

‘I know, my Lord.’

They get up. ‘I shall go. It’s in your hands, child. Will you sing the sunrise?’

‘As is appropriate.’

‘Do you want to?’

He is silent, looking inside himself. The inside quivers. The world is humming a myriad of songs around him, through him. ‘Yes. I want to.’

‘Good night, then, child.’

‘Good night.’

The caravan wakes up a few hours before sunrise. They warm up with jokes and a quick breakfast and their shared longing for home.

Roy gets into Jaya’s sandsail again. He doesn’t ask em about the night; he knows what he saw and felt and heard and who he talked with.

When the roar of the Sun comes close, Roy sings.

The caravan is returning home.


	4. Chapter 4

Noctis, as always, rushes into him[—](http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/custom.php?l=3735493550363133492600&m=PALMGARDEN20~BERBER1~DESERTWIND2~CARAVAN4~RPGVILLAGE6~DESERTWIND7~TIBET7~BERBER8~TIBET9~CARAVAN9&title=Caravanserail)a merry storm of sound and texture, vibrations and scents: the whispery scrape of sand, the metal clinkle of wind chimes, the dry flap of flags and carpets. Roy isn’t worried about being buried under it all: the bodyglove lets him filter it out. He gets out of the sandsail, the Docks a flurry of activity, and leans on the painted overhead cockpit panel briefly, closing his eyes, fingers splayed on the canvas. A quick sweep over and through the vehicle smooths out scratches, irregularities, calms the systems.

Never leave without fixing something or at least returning it to its primary state.

‘Roy?’

He recognises her before he even turns to her, before he can place together the face and the name. He is worried that the universe might be playing tricks: the infinite number of sounds folded by chance in a combination he knows.

But she’s here, head tilted slightly to the shoulder as though listening to the same melodies Roy is listening to; this ability putting them apart from the rest of the world—but bringing them together, close, too.

‘Mary.’

They make steps towards each other at the same time, her hands flying up, and he takes them in his and smiles at the familiar spark.

‘Roy.’

She’s searching for something in his face, and Roy takes the chance to study hers. She’s wearing a traveller’s clothes: cloth and sturdy leather, her golden curls cropped close, and there is a green chequered scarf at her neck, pinned with a small spindly creature.

He laughs, looking at it. ‘Technomancers from the Alliance! Of course. Are you alone here or…’

‘The whole clan is here. Joane would be happy to see you.

‘She’s impossible to not enjoy talking with.’

Mary smiles.

His throat tightens and she must see it, feel it, because she lays a hand on his cheek, something soft and yet firm in her eyes. ‘You are now the Lady-Lord, Roy.’

He swallows. ‘It appears so. I’m not sure yet.’

‘I think you are, and sure. You wouldn’t have returned if you hadn’t been sure. If you hadn’t made your peace.’

He closes his eyes, resting his cheek against her hand. Mary is so powerful, and yet her power is not frazzled anymore. It’s calm and vast like the night, welcoming to some but merciless to others.

‘I want to meet Joane, and your clan,’ he says, his voice hoarse.

‘I have students now. Three of them.’

He laughs. He can’t help it, and looks into her clear eyes again. ‘You must have so much patience.’

She snorts. It’s a sound uncharacteristic of any Technomancer—but Roy knows that Technomancers are human. More human than many humans, sometimes. ‘They are such brats, Roy, but I love them. I learn as much from them as they try to learn from me, when they deign to pay attention to our lessons. They would be happy to meet you, even if they wouldn’t show it. I told them a lot about you.’

‘All the embarrassing things?’

‘That, and all the good things.’ She pauses. ‘I think you always have been, Roy. The Lady-Lord.’

‘Perhaps. I trust your judgement.’

‘You are good.’

Mary takes him in his arms, then her hands come to his head and pull him down, and he feels Mary’s lips on his forehead, warm and welcoming.

He hides the fear against her shoulder, and Mary strokes the back of his neck, over the slight scars of the connectors under his skin. ‘All will be well, Roy. All will be well.’ It sounds not like a promise, but like a prophecy.

He almost cries.


	5. Chapter 5

He knows where to find Sean. It is not only the feeling of Sean’s signature that guides Roy. Roy sounds a note—and listens where the resonating sound comes from.

Sean lives in the Valley with his boys and most of his family—but there is a place in Noctis reserved for him—not in the Palace, but nearby in the Caravanserail. It is a workshop and a storage place—full of glues and paints and brushes and pliers and various tools—a smaller sibling of the workshop Sean has in the Valley. It is more of a storage place here in Noctis, no door as is the Noctian tradition. Anyone can come here and leave things that might interest Sean. Small things, shiny things. Beautiful things. Broken things. Sean mends them, makes them even more beautiful with their chips and scratches highlighted—marks of [history](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/AgiC0LJrV6wTbgeT2yJOTBgXQdk0d5RjBo7FQewVolnYs2Q00AHATY7TZSA8uDdyTCKXWsN-2XHvXXIZo-T3WYrOpTXLBOoC81AKGf1Ewh5Ic2nig98CzK-keGrLgICNfKVj5XIgokxGDDCm5R-5G34eiAxgtgv7WQmc34YpGNYXbgQYgta-UEKXkmP2VwS07v2rj_VdFcqN62X6z4rWlNmIW5gyv3uSpyAJs23TGqHsMgh10SgAWVyq1QTYNmOSEezNmvR5A0zxzvn_sdNBbdaQ1_NmJcu7XsMKhvCFwg4itdwoT0lNm9WRDngR8HoZHpVCBtREdUnj21nbI7nYsf6wZ6NQkP6iMYLTQKv8ypVcDE12MYlw1bvNhGiDPLJMm-V8nEG-10-BytAyytMgdp77yOI7JtWkFPH-uD2nOa2AIEZCYQQBrXhgj-lRyElg4gC6D4TIJUGVWmYkZBexHI3s9cpMSmZyywpVc45L9j9-B7OaGOoOPZS8t5wBahx6Ek5JTGo3lyxZyFvth95O1fygmESZBaG8QZRpdrfia8WdVoAwO-R6qvcVrij5-X4llhr9at8k5IW7xeEOyIzWM4a2E5nuBRlnTo_uLSrQ9i32NyQpJut4MiBLM24tAwEThjOD0v6gfqbhRcGt8Cy913T_31idgVM=w499-h92-no), of use.

There’s a curtain, here only to not let much sand in—and Roy, pushing it aside, is both disappointed and relieved to find the small room empty—besides the items, that is. There is a small blue cup resting on the worktop, glued together with silver lines.

‘You have come.’

Roy turns around.

Sean is wearing a tunic, of that many-layered variety they wear in the Valley, although more… _Sean_ , in a way that Roy cannot put into words. Stylish. He looks good[. ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LIw4HXMFmhH4785fqXfaKvJ6tBgwROJjTF46EjlHOMDne6grj3i7P_yJTl37QREGom1PQ2Jebx2eDu9-FRoTm5KpaMpJRTO0qIdlqFCB6cVmUccMpNHlPF75XVJDUzh8UOOFySZOJOuTvyWlGTk-XBq4CzIvxAxfy7gzY_limz7foGve4SqogPnoemv-bTsKA57oo5L0gxH4R4KmSiXeyRkNJhkKPLlxb1oiatFi9_RXPWbCnpnKmEaVcrBVaEv9bBUlTG1FGmrD_KmcAG59peVkJ5DjOcBbeSyEH0d2BGL5k-K0TYFkPCtx6Gw5EippqJ64JLb6m4uuRzqeAhKvd-7X2G5MsSehYTCZ1gvK3SWfiBEirFMhh88jlTmLGriHYQFjl5qfZjGiAx7mMRCizzxyEsMlwUtrdPYUhcnf8vwgr3m45ZlDEjlN9YYd7wfz2Q9Q-lhi8PlbKz-WjmGcHDNmGN7ZPYj3RVm6HqsMoxtfoCtQDGWoXt7es_WmeK8MX6jT6FnHjnMDvxW1gJ1giIISH1h71x_jyFrwKGHi4B_So8MT55CI58xfwMqd9W0ctctuI_YZV0lDiasL2TdyFdWMuhiCwcU0l2r3e7s89FjWrJ2lfJM138wO9Yx1lbmpYe5-g-7wJbmg_ykOaAxeqOk9cHoLE_w=w322-h45-no)Relaxed.

‘Oh my sweet summer child,’ Sean says— no, _purrs_ , face lit up. Though his eyes are wary.

Roy is bad at reading faces—but Sean’s emotions are not read in his face either, most of the time.

Roy swallows, drops his gaze and his bag. ‘Sorry. It won’t be long.’ He dives into the bag.

‘Roy.’

‘It won’t take long.’

He takes it out with both hands. It feels heavier than before when he finished it. He goes to Sean—all two steps that feel as long as half of Valles Marineris. He shakes it to spread then drapes it around Sean’s shoulders carefully, closes the clasp at the throat—made from an Abundance pin, bent out of shape, the molecular structure rearranged so as not to resemble the original even with a single tiniest part of its new shape.

Roy backs away to take a better look.

It falls magnificently down Sean’s back, and it’s voluminous enough, and the tiny weights sewn into the hem make sure it falls in dramatic folds. The weights are ferromagnetic, just like the tiny wires threaded through the fabric; the whole thing can be used as an improvised weapon of sorts, and for protection also.

But he can see so many flaws now that it is where it should be: the length is slightly more than it is practical for Sean, and the edges of the front are not perfectly parallel, and wiring is threaded unevenly on the left side, and it is _obvious_ that the shiny part is sewn from individual squares and that they are not all equal in size, and he _should_ have chosen something _but_ dark grey for the non-reflective part, and—

‘It is perfect.’

He startles out of his thoughts, looks up at Sean (a softness to Sean’s mouth), looks away. It takes him long moments to find his voice. ‘It’s not. I’m sorry.’

‘Roy.’

‘I’m sorry. It was a foolish idea. I’m not exactly an artisan.’ He picks the bag—but he’s stuck here because Sean is blocking the exit.

‘Roy.’

It sounds different from the previous ‘Roy’s. Sometimes, Roy repeats a word in his head and aloud until it separates from its meaning and becomes a strange jumble of meaningless sounds.

‘I kept thinking,’ Sean says and there’s something strange about his voice also. As though he’s… Sean takes a breath, and it’s rather shaky. ‘In the end, the gods will ask me, “Where is thy brother Roy?” And all I will be able to say is, “I didn’t protect him well enough.”’

He grips the straps of the bag tight. The usual Technomantic gloves would have been bent out of shape, but the Conduit bodyglove has a lot of give. ‘I don’t need protection.’

‘“I didn’t love him enough,’ Sean continues as though he hasn’t heard Roy. ‘If he is among you, I won’t recognise him; I failed him.”’

‘You did not.’

Sean takes another breath—loud and shaky and wet. ‘What I’m trying to say in this roundabout way is… I’m sorry. I hurt you, I struck where I knew it would hurt the most, and I… I’m sorry, Roy. And the cloak is perfect. Thank you.’

He thinks, then lowers the bag and looks up.

Sean’s eyes are so blue and so wet, and he doesn’t turn away.

‘How are ribs?’

Sean huffs, blinking too rapidly. ‘You know what Mel says of us? Заживает как на собаке.’

He can’t not answer with a smile. ‘He’s right. And it’s so like Melvin.’

Sean lifts his outstretched arm, the folds heavy. ‘The cloak is big enough. Come here.’ Then, before Roy can do anything, he sweeps the cloak around his shoulders, too, and pulls him close.

It is good to return the embrace.

‘It is perfect,’ Sean murmurs into his shoulder—and Roy reads everything that isn’t put into words—in the embrace itself, in Sean’s shaky breaths, the slight metallic scent of Sean’s hair that follows all Technomancers. Sean’s hand gripping his shoulder.

Sometimes, both of them are bad at words.

He nearly cries.


	6. Chapter 6

He stays with Sean for a couple of hours, watching him work on another bowl, creamy with uneven lines, broken in three pieces, a fourth missing. Sean examines the edges where breaking happened, looks through various shards on the worktop in front of him, picking one, measuring it against the bowl, putting away, picking another. Sean doesn’t comment on the bodyglove or asks about the bag, and doesn’t take the cloak off, and Roy is grateful to just exist quietly together.

He listens to Noctis[.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/QRnejhvjQxRfivHUwBgqZTjPPRMgiiv9M4RZm0bDQsrFIiZcnKouGEDtGlkal8LkVkzkKC2NWN3rjrEwiFYZk2qR0RxQ3Q91DXdKPyfw6wnI415nEEdz3FGx0aEVcFic8XmzNOEJBb9YGVYVdGi8jCFlBM8WnSARD7gPXNeoV_bYdUl88HlCcmT3tJSnTdowdk8wuFkmsHJDxkHHS27gMsLDtq6uAlCup1id-50spDj_qD7KUY2tx2ekcfwbKa2W7Ea_etOQdEQJ913WSxZqA3H-6DETFLHsI5tu6ep4apbi9wr9_flktcSLcTSmSSwBBeCFJRKq_MZPcl8B3PRNbvef8aAGxcSwmw2Og9m0NiSJ9CLSKbu7Ax_KjVH4hqSEROnX0-gMimkoOzhnVoNlw42zF7KRMHGel2tyDE_VE9q4IUBQ6VqQ4AU9SxdYaytvSV6l4coVJmr13m8DfHTaKFugKlOi1bOXkA5fXWV2iu2i8CvxGpwmyuAcR3y9SriZ-li364v4C_hueoyjVjE4-sRWrVJRywRzfV__6KMDyI-UeRAQu_2mehYNyXOb5aDPYywOWgTS5eANcBOiI5OmKZ8ERVjyhxQdzXC6jmRMIJKyO6Y80L_rQ4gFs0XODMv7TKrLHpK4tQwxRBqQ37qDYTXHbvya2hw=w729-h53-no)

Then, when waiting gets too much to bear, he picks up the bag—lighter still—and walks out. Sean doesn’t expect explanations or any words of good-bye, and Roy is grateful for that, too.

He knows where they are. He’s known since the caravan neared Noctis. He’s always known. If Sean is found by resonance, to _them_ , Roy is magnetised. An iron speck forever pointing at the magnetic north.

He drags his feet, knows that he’s stalling, and despises himself for cowardice—even as everything in him pulls him into this one direction. His home.

He dreads to find out he’s not welcome anymore.

He feels… weirdly human, with all atoms of his being.

He finds himself in an airy, spacious room without memories of walking there.

They are bent over a table with sheets of papers scattered over it—precursors to their book on Noctis and the Valley. Innocence in a sleeveless shirt, freckles on his shoulders and elbows, hair golden ringlets; Tenacity darker, in a free-flowing sandy tunic, the red in his hair highlighted by exposure to sunlight, it falls on his shoulders now, thick, lush, and Roy itches to rake his fingers through it. A blanket-scarf, faded to brown, on Tenacity’s hips; a wide crimson bracelet on Innocence’s right wrist.

He is strong by their existence—and he’s weak by the sight of them.

He wants and wants and he’s never stopped wanting.

There is not a world among all the possible worlds where he doesn’t return to them.

‘Roy!’

Innocence turns to him, and is looking at him, with eyes so light and…

He is undone. There is something tight and trembling and fragile a finger above his solar plexus, and he has shrunk to that tiny, trembling thing that only knows love and craves love and needs love and mewls for love, and it rises to his throat in a thick watery wave.

Then, Tenacity looks at him, and looks at him, and maybe Tenacity has always been looking at him and for him and after him.

He swallows that wetness—not yet. Not yet.

‘I’ve brought you something,’ he says.

‘I’d like you to have these things—but you don’t have to accept them,’ he says, and can’t believe he’s saying anything because that wave in his throat doesn’t abate.

‘I want to have it,’ Innocence says. ‘Whatever it is.’

Tenacity doesn’t say anything—just keeps looking.

He puts the bag—nearly empty, and nearly weightless—down on a stool and takes out two rings. He goes to Innocence, even though that tiny thing is so heavy in his chest he can barely move. ‘Your arms?’

Innocence holds his hands out—palms up, fingers stained in paint and chalk and graphite, scars barely visible—but Roy knows their feel and their placement.

He moves the rings, thin and big, over Innocence’s hands, then focuses on them and lets them go. They don’t fall, supported by his field, and, tuned to his will, they become smaller, smaller as their surface widens. He works on them, turning them into a new shape, flattening, until they are over Innocence’s forearms, under the crimson bracelet, covering the skin from the heel of his palms to the bend of the elbow, thin, flexible, the texture of skin underneath repeated in their texture: veins and tendons and bone and scars.

‘To protect you.’ He traces a finger from the inside of Innocence’s elbow to the wrist, the ceramic settling perfectly, thin and impenetrable: gold with cracks of blue—but if Innocence moves his hands just so, it catches light and turns white with veins of crimson.

He looks at Tenacity then—and Tenacity tilts his head up.

He makes a step back, though the third ring is already in his hand—and something like disappointment flickers on Tenacity’s face.

‘You always call me a hound, Roy. I want my collar.’

He starts shaking his head—but Tenacity steps forward, to him—and he has a wider step than Roy, so it brings them closer. A relentless pursuit, a follow to the end of the world.

‘I want it,’ Tenacity says quietly and firmly. ‘Like this. It’s mine,’ he growls, a hint of teeth.

Roy swallows. He opens the ring and closes the distance to Tenacity and slips the ring onto Tenacity’s neck, skin radiating heat, and smooths and widens and presses until the ring sits on Tenacity’s throat—a strangely coloured patch of skin, not even like paint. As though a part of his neck has turned a different shade. Just wide enough that, if Roy places his palms on Tenacity’s neck, if he closes his fingers and presses, it will be covered perfectly.

Gold-blue and white-crimson—borrowed from his robes, his pauldron and claws, from Mars itself.

They look good—armbands that are not armbands and the collar, and he knows. He knows Tenacity and Innocence are his. And he is…

‘They are from your staff,’ Tenacity says. He looks at Innocence, takes his hand, a thumb brushing over the wrist, now gold and blue, now white and crimson.

Innocence smiles—a little shy, a little happy.

‘Yes,’ Roy replies. He isn’t sure how he still can find words. ‘Held together by my presence.’

He knows they understand. There is a collar and armbands—but he’s giving himself to them, too. Bound to them. As he ever was, as he was meant to be.

If they accept him.

He takes a breath. It’s not easy. ‘I have wronged you.’

‘Yes,’ Innocence says.

‘So many times.’

‘Yes.’

‘I ran and ran and ran.’

‘You did. Again and again and again.’

‘I’m scared,’ he admits in a whisper.

‘I know,’ Tenacity says. ‘I’m scared, too. But fear makes everything sharper. Remember our hunts?’

He remembers. Everything.

‘You are here,’ Innocence says.

‘I’m here,’ he replies.

They pull him in, tight, warm, familiar. His, as he is theirs.

He cries.

**Author's Note:**

> like on the mountain the wind upon the oaks falls


End file.
